Show Preview: Best Coast @ the Showbox, Th. 6/4

Best Coast‘s music is just incredibly happy, and shows you can actually make good songs without the source being some kind of love problem or sadness with no solution or end. Or any kind of uplifting sense at all. Or if it’s a happy song, it’s about sex. For Best Coast it’s really about love writ large, or the beach in their tunes (why would you live anywhere else?, they ask in “The Only Place,” after all). That I could call Best Coast good clean fun is no insult. Even a song called “Do You Love Me Like You Used to?” sounds peppy. The song is performed in a similar manner as “When I’m with You,” which is strange, because that’s another, lighter side of love.

Best Coast‘s Bobb Bruno & Bethany Cosentino

Best Coast comes from California, naturally. The duo, Bethany Cosentino (voice, guitar) and Bobb Bruno (loads of instruments), put a drawing of a cat on its first album, Crazy for You. The second I saw that album cover I had a feeling I would be positively inclined towards Best Coast. Turns out I actually judged a band by its cover, but I was right: Best Coast is awesome. And a band that has made subtle changes in its sound album to album, which I’d categorize as: Crazy for You – beach; The Only Place – country; California Nights, the band’s latest – pop. But you still know it’s Best Coast.

The group will play Showbox at the Market tonight, Thursday June 4th. Be prepared to swoon at Cosentino’s voice.